


Where the berry bush is giving

by dwellingondreams



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Baking, Blueberries, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Love Bites, Nate's Canonical Blueberry Obsession, One Shot, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:28:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26960671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwellingondreams/pseuds/dwellingondreams
Summary: "Well, we want this kind of living/And we know where we will go/Where the berry bush is giving/And time is slow and old." - Ocie Elliott, 'Berry Bush'.They finally reach the bottom of the hill, and he gamely carries her over to a bench so she can put her sandals back on. A visiting family is staring at them, wide-eyed, probably because Nate looks like he walked off the runway and is here to model some preppy brand’s summer ad campaign, and she looks like… a woman in an oversized smock being carried while precariously balancing two baskets full of blueberries against her chest and trying not to stain her white dress.(In which the Detective and her favorite vampire try their hand at baking their own blueberry muffins.)
Relationships: Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28





	Where the berry bush is giving

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize in advance for how overwhelmingly cheesy this is, but I did make myself smile a lot while writing it.

Holly makes it about halfway up the hill before she decides that, as cute as it sounded in her head, the combination of white smock dress and flimsy, strappy, black sandals was not a good idea for a day of blueberry picking. Not only has she tripped about five times in the last fifteen minutes, she’s pretty sure the last gust of wind gave Nate an exceptional view of her underwear, and while that doesn’t necessarily horrify her, it is a little embarrassing when they’ve only been officially dating for a few months. 

Officially dating. She sounds like a teenager. As opposed to what, unofficially dating? This is Nate. He likes things to be clearly defined. Holly thinks that’s why he loves languages so much; a thousand different sets of grammar rules and codes, and he adores the meticulous act of keeping them all straight in his head, loves rifling through them for the right turn of the phrase, the perfect combination. It makes her think he would enjoy cracking safes, as absurd as that sounds. The brief thought of Unit Bravo pulling off a heist is enough to distract her from her mortification over her outfit-induced clumsiness. Nate would crack the safes, Adam would be the shot caller, Farah could probably descend from a skylight on a wire, and Morgan would… flirt with everyone in their way? Or just knock them out while disguised as a maid or high society lady. 

“Are you alright?” Nate has finally caught up to her, not because he’d have any difficulty with it, given his long legs, but because he seemed to be quite enjoying the sunny sojourn across the berry farm, while Holly gave into temptation and made the climb alone like an adventurous kid. She has very vague memories of her mother taking the rare day off one hazy, golden autumn afternoon when she was five or six, and them going apple picking together, being lifted up to pluck the ripe fruit from the tree, her mother wearing a sweater and jeans instead of her usual crisp and polished business attire.

She wishes she had more of those memories, but it is what it is. Mum was doing important work, and it’s not as though they never spent time together, it was just… more akin to the relationship between a distant aunt and niece than a parent and child. It’s better now, though. Holly can tell she’s trying, really. She makes time for a breakfast date once a month, and even suggested they go see a film sometime, probably a sappy romance they’ll both pretend not to be teary-eyed over. Like mother, like daughter. A soft heart hidden under a cool and composed exterior.

“Fine,” she says, enjoying the feeling of his palm against the small of her back, which sends a thrill up and down her spine. He can tell; his smile widens, before he tucks his hand into hers, instead. Holly has never thought of herself as particularly petite or tiny, but the comparison between the size in hands is almost comical. His easily envelops hers, and they grip one another firmly, as if to reassure themselves that the other person is still there. They might be together now, but there’s not exactly been a plethora of free time since the carnival concluded. 

Luckily no massive cases or life-or death experiences, these past few months… but lots of busywork, and now that they’re in summer, Holly knows to expect the station to get much busier with the usual noise complaints, drunk and disorderlies, domestic disputes, vandalism, traffic confrontations, trespassing, and whatever else experiences an uptick whenever the heat comes rolling in. For all that Wayhaven is damp and frigid from November through April, it’s a humid, sweltering mess for most of July, before it breaks up into the odd thunderstorm in August. But right now she’s not on duty, and she even left her phone in the car, just in case someone tried to get in contact with her. It’s her right to have a pleasant weekend to herself, and the town can manage to not fall down around Mayor Friedman’s ears while she’s spending time with her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend. She smiles utterly hopelessly at Nate, who is scrutinizing her choice in footwear. Nate always comments on her outfits to compliment them, seems to find everything she wears ‘lovely’ or ‘gorgeous’ and it would be highly annoying if she didn’t suspect he was telling the truth… every single time. It sounds so saccharine and fake, but Holly is certain she could walk out the door in ratty sweatpants and a stained tee-shirt, and Nate would find something sweet to say about it. Then again, this is the man who spends more on clothes and home goods than… well, anyone she knows. He’s a total impulse buyer and the only thing that hasn’t driven his bank account into the ground is the fact that he hates online shopping. 

She’d tease him about it, but she’s a clotheshorse herself, and she’s still reveling in the feeling of having a boyfriend- that silly word again!- who she doesn’t have to… gently encourage… to dress up a little when they’re going out to dinner or to see a show. Nate would keel over dead before he trudged out the door in cargo shorts and a faded tee shirt. She can’t even picture him in a baseball cap. Even his boxers are high end. She flushes a little at the thought, just as he glances back up, having concluded whatever train of thought he was running about her terrible sandals.

“Careful,” he says, “there’s holes all over, and you don’t want to turn your ankle.”

He’s been babying her a bit, because last week while chasing down a thief she came down too hard off a curb and twisted her left foot a bit. There wasn’t even a sprain, and thank God no one but Tina was around to cackle at her lack of coordination- although, Holly would hotly contend, she’s usually perfectly light on her feet, she did ballet until she was fifteen- but as soon as Nate found out he was terribly worried and gently guilted her into getting it checked out ‘just to be safe’. Then, of course, Mum found out and also got worried over it, and between the two of them clucking like hens she was at her wits' end. 

Her ankle’s fine now, of course, but she can tell he’s thinking about it from the slight furrow of his brow. 

“Yes, Doctor,” she says, teasingly- Nate would make quite a good doctor, actually, he’s not very squeamish and he has such a calm, reassuring manner to him- but she wouldn’t wish Wayhaven’s chaotic walk-in clinic on anyone. Less heroically saving lives during surgery, more… dealing with belligerent drunks who fell off a barstool, and sobbing toddlers and their panicked mothers. 

They finally reach the summit where the blueberry bushes are the thickest, and Holly lets go of his warm hand to adjust her grip on her basket, ready to get down to business. “We need at least two cups worth,” she says, nodding her head decisively. “So… let’s each fill our baskets up, and then we can sort through them at home for the ripest ones?”

“Sounds like a plan,” he says, with as much seriousness as if they were about to embark on a rescue mission, or spy on some gnomes or werewolves or something, and leans down to press a quick kiss to her lips. “May the best one win.”

“The best- wait, Nate!” Holly breaks into snickers when he all but descends on the bushes, but it’s too late. It’s like watching a whirlwind. A berry obsessed whirlwind. At this rate he’ll have a full basket by the time she’s picked five. Sighing, she gives up on threatening or cajoling him into going easy on her, secretly pleased he’s indulging a competitive streak. He hides it well, but there’s a little thrill to it all the same. It’s nice to know that even he isn’t humble and modest… well, all the time. Makes her feel like less of a judgmental, stubborn, arrogant mess of a person. 

She leaves him to it, deciding to favor quality over quantity, and eventually he seems to realize she’s being more discerning, rather than simply picking as many berries as possible, and follows suit, carefully examining each bush as if judging them for a farmer’s show at a country fair. Still, the sun is high in the sky and beating down on both of them, and while she’s slathered herself in sunscreen, and knows he probably won’t burn, it can’t be extremely comfortable for a vampire. They can sweat, after all. She’s well aware of that much by now. 

After the second time her sandals snag on the uneven ground and broken twigs and branches from less careful visitors, she takes them off and walks around barefoot, enjoying the sensation of the warm grass underfoot, even if she probably looks ridiculous, traipsing around barefoot like this is a music festival. When her green wicker basket is full, she turns back to him, shading her eyes with a hand- she forgot her sunglasses in the car- to find that his basket is full to the point of overflowing, but he has also scooped up her shoes.

Holly wrinkles her nose. Nate hates littering, gets a little grimace on his face whenever he sees a discarded cup or wrapper on the side of the road or floating around a parking lot, and while her sandals are not trash- “Sorry,” she says, “I’ll put them back on, they were just bothering me-,”

He hands her his basket instead, and while she’s asking him what he’s doing, picks her up in a bridal carry. This isn’t that surprising, since just a few days ago he carried he to bed when she fell half-asleep on the sofa with him after marathoning one of those detective shows he enjoys so much- he has most of the dialogue memorized, and will sometimes mouth along to it in delight when they reach his favorite scenes- but she does let out a yelp, and has to fight to keep hold of the baskets.

“I was going to put them back on!”

“This is the most practical way,” he reasons, although she can see him fighting to hide his grin, “to get us both down the hill without spilling any berries or you injuring yourself.”

“Oh, very funny, Nathaniel!”

“I’m not joking,” he says, even as he picks up the pace, taking long strides that rock her against his chest with each step, “I’m really quite anxious to get home and try this recipe, and we’ll be delayed if we have to pick things up or bring you round a doctor’s office-,”

Holly vengefully kisses the stubbled underside of his jaw. She wonders what he would look like with a beard. Farah claims Adam had one at some point, and that there’s photo evidence of it, but Holly will have to see it to believe it, because all that comes to mind when she thinks of a bearded Adam is a burly, hulking Viking striding around with an axe in hand, or something like that.

They finally reach the bottom of the hill, and he gamely carries her over to a bench so she can put her sandals back on. A visiting family is staring at them, wide-eyed, probably because Nate looks like he walked off the runway and is here to model some preppy brand’s summer ad campaign, and she looks like… a woman in an oversized smock being carried while precariously balancing two baskets full of blueberries against her chest and trying not to stain her white dress. 

After that they wait in line to pay for their bounty with everyone else, complete with the usual argument over who is pulling out their wallet. It’s not that Nate is one of those men who refuses to let a woman pay for anything in his presence, he’s perfectly content to go Dutch on all their dates, although she knows he’d also be perfectly happy, and genuinely hold no reservations over paying for it all himself, but he insists that he should pay, since trying to bake blueberry muffins was technically his idea, and they are using her car and kitchen.

“You already gave me gas money,” Holly points out, standing up on her tiptoes so to level the playing field while they quietly argue. “Plus you paid for my iced coffee on the way here, and that was way overpriced, remember?”

“You paid for that takeout last week,” he says, frowning. “And you wouldn’t let me buy dessert-,”

“That’s because we were arguing over what flavor of ice cream to get, and I won-,”

They reach the cashier, and Nate resorts to the dirtiest of tricks; in one smooth motion he angles himself forward, putting his six foot four frame between her and the counter, and while she struggles to wriggle around him and cut in, pays up, triumphant. 

“I promise I’ll let you pay next time,” he says apologetically, as they walk back to the car. Holly just sighs and rolls her eyes a little, but is, as unusual, unable to keep up the silent treatment for very long. Nate’s impossible to ignore, not when he’s doing those sad puppy dog brown eyes, even when he doesn’t mean to. He hasn’t got Morgan’s natural pout, but he does have the ‘noble yet chagrined smile’ down pat. 

The drive back home is pleasant; they’re both happy to be out of the scorching sun, even though the air conditioning in her hatchback has never worked properly, so they roll down the windows instead, although not too far, in case the wind sends the blueberries scattering all over the place. It’s a twenty minute drive back into town, but Holly takes the route that goes along the ocean, and breathes in the smell of the sea, while Nate stares out the window with an almost wistful expression, watching the blue expanse ripple by in the distance. 

“Let’s go to the beach next week,” he suggests. 

“Alright,” Holly agrees immediately, then can’t resist sending him a sly little look, “Hoping to get me into a bathing suit, are we?”

He chuckles and says nothing more on the matter, which is really all the answer she needs. Their gazes meet briefly in the rearview mirror, her darker brown to his warmer brown, and she feels the back of her neck heat up, and a frenzy of butterflies in her stomach, even though she should be used to it by now. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to him completely, not really. 

He’s extraordinary and he’s hers. She’s never possessed something so wonderful before, never felt a right to anything like this with anyone. She saw Bobby Marks in passing in the supermarket last week and idly wondered what she’d ever been thinking. Was it the product of self loathing? Nate doesn’t make her feel insecure, he makes her feel bolder, like she could say anything and he would understand, like she could be someone she’d only fantasized about, someone strong and capable and beautiful. 

The air conditioning in her tiny apartment does, at least, work properly, and Holly cranks it up until she can hear the whirring of the window unit starting to strain while Nate busies himself in the kitchen. She actually prefers cooking to baking, but she’s no stranger to it, and used to go home with Tina every day after school got out to make chocolate chip cookies from cheap store bought dough, which they would devour mindlessly while watching afternoon reruns and infomercials, occasionally doing a little of their homework. She has plans to get lunch with Tina tomorrow, and is looking forward to hearing all about the latest beau, some PhD student from the city. She hopes it’s not another philosophy major. 

Usually Holly would just consult the recipe on her phone, but Nate hates staring at small screens, and as amusing as it to watch him befuddled try to scroll down with his thumb, looking like he’s in the process of deactivating a bomb, she’s taken mercy and printed it out. She joins him at the kitchen counter, bringing over a stool to account for the fact that he is nearly a foot taller than her, and reads off the list while he collects the ingredients- flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, vegetable oil, egg, milk, butter-

Holly leans over and preheats the oven while he conscientiously layers cheery turquoise muffin liners into the baking pan, biting his lip in concentration so he does not accidentally tear any of them. Then she mixes the the flour, salt, and baking powder while he measures out vegetable oil, milk, and egg. Holly holds the bowl with both hands while he dumps it in atop the flour, and then frowns. “What does ‘fold in blueberries’ mean? Are we supposed to mash them?”

“No, I think you just-,” he tries to demonstrate, and succeeds in splattering her with batter when he accidentally knocks against the bowl.

Holly blinks as it runs down her cheek and drips onto the collar of her dress. 

Nate looks horrified. “I’m so sorry-,”

“Quick, don’t waste it,” she motions him to hurry up, then laughs when he kisses her soundly on the cheek, nearly lifting her off the stool. She scrabbles for purchase against his pressed shirt, and then finds herself sitting on the counter, her legs wrapped around his waist, holding him in place as his kisses move from her cheek and neck to her mouth. 

The beeping of the preheated oven reminds them that they still do, in fact, need to ‘fold in’ the blueberries. 

They try their best, pouring in the finished batter, and then delivering it into the oven like anxious parents seeing their child off to kindergarten. 

They have twenty five minutes.

Holly smiles in satisfaction, then feels at the stain on her collar. “I better put this in the wash.”

“Oh, certainly,” he says, emphatically. “You’d better change immediately, Holly, that sort of stain could really linger if you don’t take that dress off as soon as possible-,”

She scowls up at him, only belied by the way her eyes are smiling. “And whose fault is that?”

“Well… if there’s anything I can do- and I mean anything- to make it up to you-,”

She glances around. Her curtains are closed to keep more hot sunlight from pouring into the flat, and the front door is locked. Holly lifts up her skirt and yanks the dress up and over her head, pulling at her ponytail, then kicks it at him, laughing, at the look on his face, one of awed delight that she took the bait. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

He carefully picks up her dress, ever the conscientious one, even though her kitchen floor is spotless, she mopped it two days ago, as per her mother’s inquiring, and stalks her with the look of a big predator a little too pleased to have cornered the frankly quite giggly rabbit, all the way out of the tiny galley kitchen, across her tiled floors, and into her bedroom, where her laughter reaches a fever pitch of near squeals when he almost hits his head on the low door frame, then dies down abruptly as he fumbles with his belt.

It’s still hot to lie right beside him, afterwards, and her small bed barely fits both of them, unless he wants his feet to hang off the end, so they contort themselves into a series of odd positions until they find something tolerable, which involves him curled around her, the weight of his head across her lap as she puts her back up against the cool metallic headboard, trying to find some relief for the swollen love bite he left on her left shoulder blade. 

He looks worried when he sees her feeling at it, and puts his hand on hers, stroking gently. “Does it hurt?” He’s always worried about hurting her. Not necessarily in the moment, thankfully, it would make sex agonizing if he stopped every time he thought he might have been too enthusiastic, despite her being as clear as possible in her eager encouragement, as much as she appreciates him always waiting for her to explicitly give him the go ahead, and his habit of always keeping condoms in his wallet. But afterwards, often, he gets almost nervous if she’s quiet, wondering whether he was too rough with her or made her feel uncomfortable.

“No,” she says, watching her fan slowly spiral over the bed. “Just a little tender. Do you hurt?” That’s a bit of a stupid question, since any scratches or small bruises she might leave on him would be gone in a matter of minutes with his healing, but she feels it’s only fair to ask, even if she’s half his size. 

“No,” he breathes, his breath tickling at her thigh. She hums under her breath and pushes back his hair from his eyes; he took it down at some point, and now it’s hot under her hands, radiating heat along with the rest of his tawny skin. “Stop,” he mumbles. “You’ll make me fall asleep.”

“Is sex the only thing that makes you really tired?” It’s half teasing, half serious. She’s seen him stay up all night on a stake-out without so much as a yawn, go days without a wink of sleep and still behave normally, not irritated or tense in the least.

“Hm…” he ponders it. “Maybe. I’d have to… collect more data first.”

“Oh. Well, you let me know anytime you want to run an experiment,” she informs him, brushing through his hair one more time, and checking his watch- the fact that he wears a watch and then removes it so neatly, even while clambering atop her, is endlessly amusing. They still have a few minutes before they need to check the oven. Her phone buzzes out in the living room, but she ignores the shrill ringtone. 

“Don’t check it,” he murmurs, like a child, worried she'll leave him.

“It’s just Tina,” she says. “My mum would call, she doesn’t like texts. Like you.”

One warm brown eye flicks open to regard her, wounded. “I’m getting better.”

“Yes, poor old man,” she pats him in mock sympathy on the head. 

That riles him, and he clambers up, pulling her close even as she bats ineffectively at him, smiling, so that their positions are reversed, her locked between his chest and his legs, his knees pressing up against her collarbone. Trapped, she concedes defeat and leans back against his chest, hoping she doesn’t get hair in his mouth. Instead he tucks his chin against the top of her temple. “I’d never been berry picking before today,” he says. “We should take the others sometime.”

As if Unit Bravo were the children they needed to get out of the house; drag Adam away from his history books- she wonders whose biography he’s reading right now- Farah away from her video games- and Morgan away from her… well, whatever Morgan does in her free time. Judo? Welding? Holly really needs to figure that out before the holidays roll around. “We could all go pumpkin picking in October,” she says. “You’ve never had a Wayhaven Halloween before.”

“Is is a special affair?”

“Well, we’ve got our share of urban legends,” she smiles and feels him smile back against her hair. He finds the bite mark on her shoulder blade and kisses it, gently. 

“Is it better now?”

“Mmhm.”

The oven timer dings. Holly sighs and languidly knocks against his knees with her knuckles to command her release. He reluctantly lets her go, then dresses, or at least puts covers the important bits, while she pulls on a long tee shirt that comes down to her mid thigh and follows him back into the kitchen.

He watches with great anticipation as she carefully removes the tray of muffins, then swats at his hand with a spatula. “Hey! Wait for them to cool, blueberry fiend.”

“They’re not that hot,” he’s actually fidgeting, the way Morgan does when she wants a cigarette but they’re stuck in the lab running tests. 

“They’re hot enough,” Holly scolds, although she knows burned fingertips mean nothing to him, She’s seen him get tossed out a window and pick himself off the pavement as if he was simply winded, go plummeting down a stairwell only to grab onto a landing and dangle there, spider-like, before swinging himself onto another approaching assailant. She never wants him to feel like she doesn’t take his safety seriously, but it’s hard to compare their physical states, even if he’s nowhere near as reckless of a fighter as Farah or Morgan. 

She pours him a small glass of milk- wondering if she should give him sort of her lactaid pills, are vampires lactose intolerant, or is that just a human only thing- and finally lets him have his treasured muffin, which he seems to undertake like a religious ritual. If there was a god of the blueberry bush, she thinks Nate would pray to it. She comes around to the other side of the counter to eat her own muffin, watching him close his eyes in ecstasy as he swallows, and shaking her head, pops some of the crumbling top into her mouth. “Not bad,” she pronounces. “We’re pretty good bakers.” 

He’s already moving onto his second. 

“Nate, don’t spoil your appetite.”

“I don’t have an appetite to spoil,” he retorts cheekily. “I have a fast metabolism brought on by the pheremonal changes to my body’s chemistry-,”

She tosses a bit of her muffin at him, then sighs when he catches it in his mouth without so much as flinching. “Wow.”

He chews and swallows, looking innocent, then drags the stool she’s sitting on a little closer to his, barely exerting a muscle to do so. “Now I think you’re just rubbing the whole supernatural abilities thing in,” she complains, resting her chin on her hand. 

He wordlessly hands her another muffin, which is about as close as Nate Sewell will ever get, she thinks warmly, to telling her to shut up and eat.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [dwellordream](https://dwellordream.tumblr.com/) where I unfortunately mostly post about ASOIAF and HP. I am always open to prompts, though.


End file.
